Law School Discussion

Thank you for your reply livinglegend!

I do have a business partner, and he has offered to pick up the slack while I am away because it will be beneficial to our business. Also, we have modeled this business to be operational without our constant supervision. It isn't there yet, but we are very close. We are looking to expand to other cities (the ones listed) and my business partner would run the one where I go to law school as well. I will be more of a watchful eye, rather than a day to day operator while in school. We have had some serious setbacks due to attorneys (our own), which could have been avoided, had I been more knowledgeable. The dollar amount that these mistakes have cost us already is at least equal to a 3 year law school education. However, I do not want to waste time on a poor education. I should have restated my question to whether my soft factors are good enough to get me into any T1 program that has a higher than usual emphasis on soft factors, specifically business oriented soft factors. Job prospects, scholarships, and region are less important to me than quality of the education, as I will not be pursuing a legal career and my business will pay the tuition costs.

Thank you for your reply livinglegend!

I do have a business partner, and he has offered to pick up the slack while I am away because it will be beneficial to our business. Also, we have modeled this business to be operational without our constant supervision. It isn't there yet, but we are very close. We are looking to expand to other cities and my business partner would run the one where I go to law school as well. I will be more of a watchful eye, rather than a day to day operator while in school. We have had some serious setbacks due to attorneys (our own), which could have been avoided, had I been more knowledgeable. The dollar amount that these mistakes have cost us already is at least equal to a 3 year law school education. However, I do not want to waste time on a poor education. I should have restated my question to whether my soft factors are good enough to get me into any T1 program that has a higher than usual emphasis on soft factors, specifically business oriented soft factors. Job prospects, scholarships, and region are less important to me than quality of the education, as I will not be pursuing a legal career and my business will pay the tuition costs.

Having a successful business is a solid soft factor, but law school admissions are highly geared on numbers. If you started a multi-million dollar company that is something that would catch the eye of an admissions committee, but again check out lawschoolnumbers.com and you will just how much of a numbers game law school admissions is.

There are also no ABA two year programs law school needs to be three or more years. Southwestern law school in L.A. might have some specialty program and with your numbers you could probably get in there. You also probably will not be able to manage this large of a business and get through law school. I knew many people in law school that tried the part-time program and had just 9-5 jobs and failed out. They were not dumb, but law school is very time intensive probably more so than any other form of education.

I have to ask what your motivation for law school is as well. I loved law school, but I do not know how you could manage 30 employees and an entire company while learning the intricacies of interpleader or the rule against perpetuities. Feel free to prove me wrong, but I think you either have to choose law school or your business.

Good luck with your decision.

Quote from: Cher1300 on April 25, 2013, 04:05:02 PM

Actually, my biggest concern are the bar pass rates for CBE schools.  After doing some research, it appears Monterey does a bit better than those in the Los Angeles area.  Do you think that bar pass sucess rates are largely due to the individual or the school they attend?  Or do you think the CBE schools do not fair quite as well because students are not required to have a bachelor's degree or have higher LSAT scores as ABA schools?  Would like to get your opinion on that.

Several factors influence bar pass rates for CBE schools versus the pass rates for ABA. Lower academic requirements for admission may be a factor, but I'm convinced that it is not the predominant reason - or even a terribly significant one - for the lower pass rates by CBE grads. The students who graduate from CBE programs have all shown that they can perform competent legal analysis and they can pass the same law school exams that you'd find at any ABA school. The real difference lies in the attention to bar prep that CBE students on average are able to give. ABA students are predominantly unemployed or part-time workers at most. They tend to enjoy the luxury of having substantial amounts of time to study the law and to prepare for the bar. Conversely, most CBE students have full-time jobs, and a large percentage cannot take a two-month leave of absence from work to concentrate on the bar. This is the critical difference. The quality of the education itself is no different after they've weeded out the first-year students. Put ABA students in the same shoes as CBE students, or vice versa, and I have no doubt that the pass rates would virtually mirror one another.

I think all of Duncan's points about bar preparation are right on point. For example, when I arrived at MCL in 2005, about 30% of the graduates took a full-blown bar review course. The others "borrowed" prior course books, took less-expensive on-line courses, self-studied, etc. The result was a cumulative pass rate of about 38% on the California Bar Exam. We now have the BarBri course fee included as part of the regular law school tuition and have 100% participation. We also have a review course that starts in early February and is 3-4 nights a week all the way to the July bar exam. This allows working students to continue working during the day, but still complete the entire review course in time for the July bar exam. We also add several full-day Saturday practice exams that are graded by our legal writing faculty who have been through the calibration (bar grading) training program. Our cumulative bar pass rates for the California bar exam are now 66-68% and are among the top scores out of the 18 CBE law schools. HOWEVER, all of this presumes that the law student was diligent throughout law school, prepared, and performed well on all of their bar tested subjects. There is NO short cut to learning the law. I hate to say that there are no surprises, but we find that hard work and performance in law school, NOT LSAT or UGPA are the predictors for success. I think Duncan is absolutely right that a good student can be successful at any law school

There are a few things to address here, I'll try cover them all. First of all, congratulations! Your business acumen is impressive and you should be commended.

Soft Factors
Are your soft factors "good enough"? It depends on what you mean by "good enough". Your business experience will not overcome your GPA/LSAT and get you into Harvard, but it might help with schools where you're on the borderline of admit/reject. The vast majority of admissions decisions are based on numbers, pure and simple. Law schools love to talk about they look at the "whole applicant", but most have a GPA/LSAT range beyond which admission is highly unlikely.

Soft factors seem to be most useful when the applicant is being compared to other numerically equivalent applicants. Then they can be used as a tie-breaker. Higher numbers, however, will almost always beat good soft factors. Interestingly, I think soft factors matter more at top ranked schools than at lower ranked schools. With a 2.8/155 you'll be applying to T2-T4 schools, and the decisions will be based mostly on numbers.

Possibly a part time or 2 year program, I may start another business that I will run during law school, so larger markets are preferred.

You're a little bit all over the place on the these next two issues. A two year program and a part-time (4 year) program are very different. You will not be able to start a new business or run an existing one if you do a two year program. The only two year program I know of (at Southwestern) is incredibly intense and requires a whole separate application process. I'm not sure, but they may not even allow you to work at the same time.

Starting a new business while attending a four year part time program would still be very challenging. I attended a part time program and I can tell you that it was still a huge amount of work, far more than most people expect. Law school is nothing like college. The level at which you are expected to operate, the competition among students, and the rigor of the courswork is shocking at first. I knew many classmates who worked while in law school, but they weren't starting new businesses (which requires a significant time investment), and many had to cut back on work because it was just too much. Something to think about.

Possibly San Diego, Chicago, Nashville, Austin, Dallas, Portland, Seattle, or Houston.

These are all very different cities and you will have very different post-graduation opportunities depending on each choice. I'm not sure what your post grad plans are, maybe you're not interested in practicing law per se. Nonetheless, you should think about where you want to live after law school, and try to go to law school in that city. For example, if you go to law school in Houston but want to live in San Diego after school, that means that you'll have to take the CA bar exam and then compete against the local talent who have spent the last three years working at local internships, gaining experience, and making connections. If you attend a non-elite out of state school, the problem is compounded because you can't rely on your academic pedigree to find work.

I hope this helped, and I wish you the best of luck! 

I am 28 years old, I have 14 years of hospitality experience. 10 of which are in management. I wrote a business plan, raised capital and started my own business when I was 26 years old. My 1st company grosses 2 million/year with a 30% profit margin. Business was in the black in 9 months. I purchased a second company 1 year later which I am turning around. I currently employ 30 full time employees and the business is growing steadily. My business has won many awards and is very highly rated in the industry where I am located. (one of the most competitive cities in the country for this industry) took the LSAT once, 155, gpa 2.89. Worked 3 jobs, 60-70hrs a week, to put myself through school in 4 years. Suggestions for law schools? Possibly a part time or 2 year program, I may start another business that I will run during law school, so larger markets are preferred. Possibly San Diego, Chicago, Nashville, Austin, Dallas, Portland, Seattle, or Houston.

Please excuse grammar or punctuation, I wrote this on an iPad and I'm too impatient to correct errors on it.

I am 28 years old, I have 14 years of hospitality experience. 10 of which are in management. I wrote a business plan, raised capital and started my own business when I was 26 years old. My 1st company grosses 2 million/year with a 30% profit margin. Business was in the black in 9 months. I purchased a second company 1 year later which I am turning around. I currently employ 30 full time employees and the business is growing steadily. My business has won many awards and is very highly rated in the industry where I am located. (one of the most competitive cities in the country for this industry) took the LSAT once, 155, gpa 2.89. Worked 3 jobs, 60-70hrs a week, to put myself through school in 4 years. Suggestions for law schools? Possibly a part time or 2 year program, I may start another business that I will run during law school, so larger markets are preferred. Possibly San Diego, Chicago, Nashville, Austin, Dallas, Portland, Seattle, or Houston.

Please excuse grammar or punctuation, I wrote this on an iPad and I'm too impatient to correct errors on it.

I know this thread is a few months old, but thanks, livinglegend, for the great advice. I am in a situation similar to the OP, and when I seek advice on these online forums I usually just get a lot of bashing. Your closing line ought to be a sticky: "Bottom line is whether you make it in the legal profession has a lot more to do with you than the school you attended."

Caseycu8 & All -

Livinglegend offers excellent advice. 

As to the "It's not you, it's me" aspect, while that is generally true, two factors should weigh heavily in this discussion:  the abysmal market, and, even with a scholarship, the sizable cost.  (Also, be very, very careful that the scholarship is non-revocable; most can and are lost in the second and third years.  Get it in writing.) 

As to the former, the market, while one might want to believe that its effect is merely on those who are seeking a more traditional path, what we have seen in the collapse of the market is a cascading effect.  I lived this, in 1991 when I graduated into the short but steep recession then.  What is different now is, first, this is anything but short, and second, there may be and likely are structural changes afoot in the practice of law.  The length and severity of the recession, which have left us with approximately half as many jobs annually as there are graduates, is a "bunching" of unemployed, and soon unemployable, law graduates.

As to the structural changes, Charles Cooper and I wrote a book, Con Law: Avoiding...or Beating...the Scam of the Century (The Real Student's Guide to Law School and the Legal Profession).  The book goes into greater depth into the above.  (Cooper is author of Later-in-Life Lawyers.)

It seems reasonable (if admittedly self-interested) to state that Con Law (or its more academic cousins, Don't Go To Law School (Unless): A Law Professor's Inside Guide to Maximizing Opportunity and Minimizing Risk, by Paul Campus; Failing Law Schools, by Brian Tamanaha; and The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis, by Steven Harper) are a minimum of research before embarking on a three-year and multi-hundred-thousand-dollar degree.  (And, by the way, even if you are given scholarships that are not revoked, you will still be "spending" this much money in opportunity costs.)

If, after reading these accounts, one is still insistent . . . excellent.  That is a sign that you should go to law school. 

Once you have decided that, then you should read all the books on law school, and incorporate from each strategies to maximize career options that will be open only to the tippy-top students, especially at non-tippy-top law schools.  Please keep in mind that there are, and have been for the past several years, only one-half as many law jobs (of any kind) as there are law graduates.

A personal take:  do not listen to those who say, or write, some version of "Don't worry, be happy" during, well, now, the summer before you go to law school.  You darned well ought to be worried about, and working toward, doing extremely well.  For most, that requires a sense of what happens in law school that is missing in all but those students who (usually) have a family with a top lawyer or two.  In short, what we think as students is happening in a law classroom is not what is tested on an exam; this is one reason grades are so radically disconnected from what is happening in class.

Best of luck to you,

Thane.

First you have to be honest yourself getting a 165 or 170 is unlikely. That puts you in the top 10% of test takers and people that take the LSAT in the first place are college graduates who are motivated enough to attend law school, which puts you in about the top 1-2% of people and 98% of us myself included did not get a 165-170 on their LSAT.

On top of that if you got a 149 on your diagnostic it probably means you won't score that high. With that said you if you show up and take the test you can likely get into an ABA law school and I will tell you only 5% of lawyers nationwide attended top 10 schools. There are 200 ABA law schools and only 10 in the top 10. This means 95% of lawyers nationwide did not attend Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc. I myself didn't, but am a lawyer and love my job. I also work with many other lawyers most of whom did not attend top 10 schools a few Berkley grads, but we are all licensed by the state bar to practice law and work in the same office.

On top of that what is really going to change in a few months? You have been prepping with Kaplan for months if you were saying you hadn't done anything to prepare then you should probably wait, but it sounds like you have been studying. In a few months you will feel the same panic and being unprepared. When you go to law school you will completely unprepared for finals every time and then when teh bar comes my god you will feel unprepared. Then when your a lawyer you will never feel fully prepared for a trial and that feeling of not being 100% ready is part of being a lawyer.

With that said it is your decision, but I am willing to bet if you wait until the October test this same feeling will come up. If you have taken courses and put in a good faith effort take your test and get a score then know your options. Also do not be disappointed if you don't get a 170 almost nobody does.

You will also need to be prepared for that realization when you attend law school in the same way only 10% of test takers can score 170 only 10% of any law school class can graduate in the top 10%, but on your first day 100% of law students who are the same people you are competing with on the LSAT are smart, motivate, and hard working and truly believe they will be in the top 10%, but 90% of those people are wrong and half of them finish in the bottom half of the class.

Bottom line I recommend taking the test you have taken the course and studied for months. There is not much more you can do, but if you truly believe you are not ready it is your call, but I don't think anyone that has ever taken the LSAT felt confident going in, but once it is done it will be a relief. The same feeling will be present throughout your law school career, the bar exam, and your career as a lawyer.

Good luck whatever you do.

Yes I think if you will not be comfortable attending NYLS then do not attend it is a highly personal decision and if you want to live and work in New Jersey attend law school in New Jersey. Do not go to law school just to go my point is many people say they want to go to law school, but they never end up going instead they are waiting for the perfect situation and if you wait for everything to be perfect nothing will ever get done.

It is entirely your choice and there is no right or wrong decision hopefully you get into Rutgers or Seton Hall next year.